Unfortunately, your access has now expired. But there’s good news—by subscribing today, you will receive 22 issues of Booklist magazine, 4 issues of Book Links, and single-login access to Booklist Online and over 180,000 reviews.

Your access to Booklist Online has expired. If you still subscribe to the print magazine, please proceed to your profile page and check your subscriber number against a current magazine mailing label. (If your print subscription has lapsed, you will need to renew.)

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World.

Goodell, Jeff (author).

Climate change has many, interconnected aspects, none more urgent than those affecting the oceans. In this engaging book, environmental writer Goodell (How to Cool the Planet, 2011) points out that while sea levels have always risen and fallen, the current rise is driven primarily by the dramatically accelerating melting of the arctic ice caps, and with so many cities on seashores, this will be devastating. Goodell circles the globe, interviewing scientists and those responsible for keeping people and their homes above water, observing how cities and nations, many already dealing with more frequent flooding and seawater contamination of freshwater sources, are able to adapt varies widely because of differing economic and political conditions. For some, it will mean building vast seawalls to shore up existing development, for others it will mean elevating infrastructure or abandoning low-lying regions and islands within a few generations. Creative responses must be deployed to save millions of lives and coastal communities, while nations must also work together to mitigate the impact we’re having on the earth’s delicate ecological balance. Goodell points to the Paris Climate Accord, which acknowledges human activity as a source of global warming and seeks a collective reduction in greenhouse gases to slow down global warming, as an essential first step.